Forever Is Over

by Wade, Calvin

  Jemma Watkinson was still stood there and I was all set to jump in with both feet and launch a volley of verbal abuse, then I noticed Kelly was at her side and this lessened my anger a little. Still, irrespective of who her sister was, I still felt duty bound to say something. I composed myself and then calmly walked over to the two of them,

  “What happened?”

  Kelly spoke on behalf of Jemma, who, to be fair, did look a little crestfallen.

  “He,” she pointed at Billy McGregor who was on his way into the kitchen, “said to our Jemma that he’d been having sex with me upstairs and that he’d thrown up when he remembered I’m not fourteen yet. Jemma lost it, tried to belt him, missed and caught your brother. It was a total accident, Richie.”

  Did I believe this? I’m not sure. If Jemma hadn’t threatened to beat Jim up ten minutes earlier, it would have sounded more plausible. At the same time though, having spent all of five minutes with Kelly, if Billy McGregor had said to me that he had just slept with her, I would have wanted to knock his block off too. I thought Kelly was fascinating, beautiful, innocent, friendly, warm, honest…and thirteen….why did she have to be thirteen? I mentioned earlier that I had felt an urge to protect her and if that had meant punching Billy McGregor, I would have done it without a moment’s hesitation. I sought clarification from Jemma.

  “Is this true?”

  “Yes,” she seemed distant, “can you just leave me alone for a while, I just need a bit of space?”

  Jemma wandered off into the study. It was strange seeing someone as cocksure as Jemma being as humble as this. It was not a side of her character I had ever seen. I was delighted Jemma was like this though, as it gave me another opportunity to speak to Kelly again, just the two of us.

  Kelly tried to go after Jemma but I took her hand and pulled her back.

  “Let her go, Kelly! Give her the space she says she needs.”

  “I’m worried about her. She doesn’t normally act like this.”

  I felt like saying “she’s acting far nicer than she normally does!” but if Risk was Kelly’s middle name, mine was probably Tact, so instead I responded with,

  “She’ll be fine. Just give her some space.”

  This no doubt came across as logical, caring advice but I wasn’t being caring or sensitive at all, my motivation was purely selfish, I wanted Kelly to myself. Kelly was obviously a compassionate sister and had I been a compassionate brother, I would have gone into the kitchen at this point, to see how my brother was doing, but frankly Jim seemed OK, so he was a long way down my list of priorities. I just wanted to be alone with Kelly.

  “Do you fancy going for a walk?” I asked.

  This plan had two motives. One was that it would prevent further distractions and secondly it gave me an opportunity to gauge Kelly’s interest in me. It was a blatant move. I knew it was a move, Kelly, although only thirteen, was pretty intelligent and I am sure she knew it was a move too. If she was interested, she would say, “Yes”, if not she would make an excuse. Kelly smiled again and stared right into my eyes. A return to flirtation, I thought. A good sign! I hoped so anyway, suddenly I felt nervous. How ridiculous, a man of almost sixteen worrying about the reaction of a thirteen year old girl!

  “OK! Let me go and tell Jemma we’re heading out!”

  It didn’t seem like an excuse or a delaying tactic, after all she said it in an excited tone. I was pretty sure she was being genuine, but I was no expert. If I was a girl and I wanted to fend a lad off, I would make my delaying tactic sound pretty genuine too. Kelly headed into the study.

  I twiddled my thumbs and watched the world go by. At one stage, Amy Perkins and Eddie Garland went past, Amy leading Eddie up the stairs. Continuing to have a sense of nervousness and a knot in my gut, I did a bit of minesweeping of half drunk beer bottles abandoned in the hallway. As a minute turned into two and then into five, I concluded a romantic walk was not going to happen. I was even tempted to follow Kelly into the study and ask her what the hell was keeping her, but once again my newly christened middle name got the better of me. Making a scene did not appear to be a good long-term move. I felt like I wanted Kelly to be around for a long time, not just someone I could French kiss and window clean her backside. If I started trying to call the shots, it may put her off me and I didn’t want that. Why did she have to go and check on her sister anyway? I thought her middle name was Risk? After what must have only been about five minutes, but seemed a lot longer, especially because I had guzzled four or five half-bottles of lager in that period and was now needing a wee, Kelly emerged looking both concerned and frustrated. I had already convinced myself that our walk would not be happening, but Kelly’s look was the rubber stamp.

  “I’m so sorry, Richie, I’m going to have to stay here and keep an eye on Jemma. She was already pretty drunk before we got here and she’s in even more of a state now. She apparently just poured herself a massive mix of drinks from the cabinet and necked the whole lot in one, when that kicks in, she’ll be in serious trouble! She’s slumped down in there like a boxer who has had one fight too many, come and look”.

  Given the way Jemma threw her punches the boxing analogy was somewhat appropriate. Kelly grabbed me by the hand and steered me into the study. I’m so glad she did because if I hadn’t seen Jemma for myself, I’d have just presumed she was making polite excuses. When I went in there, however, Jemma was sat down with her back propped up against the wall, looking like someone who had just been given several thousand volts of electricity from a cattle prodder. If that was Caroline, I must admit, I would not have left her either. Jim maybe, Caroline, definitely not.

  “Sorry, Richie!” Kelly repeated.

  “Forget it, Kelly. It’s not your fault.” I re-assured her.

  “Can we do something another time?” she asked.

  What was she doing now? Brushing me off or asking me out?

  “I can stay with you now, Kelly, it’s OK. You may need someone to grab the other side of Jemma if she’s going to spew.”

  “Richie, I don’t want you to stay. Jemma will be OK, I just need to keep an eye on her, you don’t. Go and enjoy the party.”

  I wanted to tell her it was a crap party until the moment I saw her. I wanted to tell her I wouldn’t enjoy the party one bit without her, but I didn’t. I needed to be cooler than that and I wanted to retain some pride. I clung on instead to her penultimate statement.

  “Are you serious about doing something another time?”

  “Of course, I am!”

  “Like a date?”

  “Not like a date, Richie. A DATE!”

  “And your parents would not have a problem with you going out with someone my age?”

  “How old are you, Richie?”

  “Fifteen, sixteen in August.”

  “Well, I’m fourteen next month. We aren’t exactly Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman are we?”

  Kelly had a point.

  “I know that! I know you haven’t got an issue with it, but what about your Mum and Dad? Your Dad may think Fifth form lads are only after one thing!”

  “I haven’t got a Dad.”

  Great! My shoulders sagged. Trust me to put my size elevens right in it. “Sorry. Did he die?”

  “No idea. I have never met him. He’s probably better off.”

  That struck me as a weird thing to say. If I had a daughter as beautiful as Kelly, I would stride down the street with my head held high. How could anyone be better off without her? This time I couldn’t stop myself blurting something out.

  “You’re wrong, Kelly. He definitely isn’t better off without you!”

  I was immediately embarrassed I’d said it. It was cheesy and uncool. Kelly smiled at me, not a flirtatious smile this time, a re-assuring, don’t you be worrying type smile.

  “Come to mine next Saturday, at six o’clock. We can go to the cinema but I’ll introduce you to my mother. Then you’ll understand!”

  “OK”, I replied, “whereabouts do you live?�
�

  “Wigan Road. At the bottom end, one house up from the Ropers, near the hospital.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Maybe I’ll get the chance to kiss you then, I thought, those lips look like they really need kissing. I was starting to feel more than a little drunk.

  Out of the blue, Kelly reached up and kissed me on the cheek.

  “I shall look forward to it, Richie! It’s been lovely speaking to you tonight, now go off and enjoy the party! I’ll see you around at school and see you properly at six o’clock next Saturday!”

  “OK. See you Saturday!”

  I blushed, smiled and then shot up the stairs. I needed to join the queue for the toilet as quickly as I could as my bladder was fit to burst. I stood in the queue which was about ten deep and cursed that it was mainly girls in front, which was a pain as they took much longer. I needed to take my mind off how close I was to peeing my pants so found an obvious solution by reflecting on my introduction to Kelly Watkinson. She was only thirteen years old but was far more mature than some of the girls in my year and miles ahead of most of the lads. She seemed calm and sensible, the middle name of Risk didn’t seem to suit her at all. Some of my mates would probably take the mickey about me “going out” with a girl in third year, but I knew it would be worth taking any stick to spend time with Kelly. I already felt there was a strong chance we would stay together for the rest of our lives. Maybe that was the drink talking but I didn’t think so. My future seemed, for the first time, to have some clarity and that future was with Kelly. The only problem was, I thought, if I ever married Kelly, I would have bloody Jemma Watkinson as a sister-in-law.

  “What a nightmare!!” I said to myself out loud. No doubt the rest of the queue thought I was passing comment on the time it was taking to have a wee.

  “I think she must either be throwing up or having a crap!” responded the girl in front of me.

  If I married Kelly though, I suppose I would just have to handle Jemma. Every silver lining has a cloud! Ten further minutes passed with more thoughts about Kelly and then it was my turn. I ran in, ignoring the smell and whopped out my semi-erect willy and sprayed as much wee as I could manage into the toilet bowl. I struggled but I was certainly not the first of the evening to consistently miss the bullseye. As I was missing, I remember thinking that girls just don’t understand how boys manage to miss such an easy target, but they should try putting their finger over a garden hose when it is full on and then try to spray the whole lot into a bucket. It’s bloody hard!

  After a very fulfilling wee, I headed back downstairs, avoiding the temptation to return to the study. I was sure Kelly thought I was pretty cool and I did not want to soil this impression. I headed to the kitchen and on reflection, this was the point that a near perfect evening began to head into a totally different direction.

  I had headed to the kitchen to check on Jim and Caroline. Jim had a big plastic bag of ice placed under his chin and Caroline had become so concerned about Jim’s jaw that she had ordered a taxi and was debating whether to go straight home or to casualty.

  “Do we all have to go, Cal? It’s not half past ten yet!”

  I was showing my true colours. If there was a colour called selfish bastard, it would have fitted me well!

  Jim was evidently annoyed that I was not being more sympathetic. If his eyes were daggers, I’d have been nursing two stab wounds to the heart.

  “Look, Richie, you can stay if you want but I’m in bloody agony here. I need to go home and don’t forget, I’m the one with the money”.

  Jim explained this in his typically diplomatic way. Basically he was saying come with us or walk six miles home along unlit country roads with no pavements. I didn’t appear to have a huge amount of choice.

  “You don’t have to go, Richie!” said a now hugely inebriated Joey Birch, as he put his arm around me,

  “You can stay here! Kip down on the floor with a few of the D-GAS boys! Come on man! It’ll be a laugh!”

  If I was any sort of brother, I’d have left in that taxi with Jim and Caroline. Caroline was a good sister, she left her boyfriend behind to show solidarity with a wounded sibling. A wounded sibling who later that night, after three hours in Casualty, was diagnosed as having a fractured jaw. I was a crap brother, accepted Joey’s invitation, cracked open another beer and didn’t have a moment’s regret until six hours later when I was watching my vomit run down the insides of the taxi window, hoping beyond hope that no-one had witnessed my final party trick.

  Jemma

  I needed some space. Once James Billingham was floored by my knockout punch, everyone congregated in the lounge to get a view on the transpiring events and it felt awful. My knuckles ached and more disturbingly, hate was in the air. I could feel a sense of hatred being directed at me. I was used to people not liking me, but generally it was for reasons I could handle, I was too smart for them, I was too pretty for them or I had a boyfriend they wanted. A dislike based on jealousy was something I thrived on. This was different though. When James Billingham was flat out on the floor in the Birch’s lounge, the impression I had, was not that I was hated because of looks, intelligence or having a boyfriend they wanted, I was now hated because I was horrible. My worst fears were starting to be realised, I was turning into Vomit Breath! Vomit Breath was the type of woman who would throw her fists around, in fact, she had a history of committing that very same crime. If a woman looked at her the wrong way, she would punch her. If a man spurned her advances, she would punch him (“for being gay”) and if boyfriends did not comply with her every demand, she would punch them. I remember one poor guy called Duncan, a carpet fitter from Maghull, was picked up at the Kingsway and rolled back to ours and then at four in the morning all hell broke loose, as you could hear Vomit Breath release a series of punches into his face. His crime? Breaking wind accidentally during the sexual act. Vomit Breath was that type of woman, pure evil and I was not wanting to become a carbon copy.

  Once James came around, Kelly and Richie Billingham gathered around me like detectives at a murder scene, wanting to know what had happened and why. Kelly, ever the doting sister, was defending me and putting it down to being a bit of an accident, but that was missing the point. The point being, I threw a punch and although it had not connected with my intended victim, there was still a victim. I was not proud of my behaviour, I was appalled by it. The year before, one typical Friday night when Vomit Breath had disappeared on one of her weekend pub crawls, Kelly and I had watched a brilliant film on video called “Dangerous Liaisons”. Glenn Close played the Marquise de Merteuil and at the very start, she is seen admiring her own beauty in the mirror, knowing how this beauty is envied. At the very end, she is looking at herself again in the very same mirror, but this time as a broken, ugly and despised woman. I felt like I had been through the same transition, from someone people envied to someone people despised.

  I needed to get out of the Birch’s lounge and like my mother’s daughter, the only friend I wanted was in a bottle. I headed to the study, which was now empty and poured myself the biggest combination of shots I could fit into a glass. The sense of loathing had numbed my senses, within a minute my glass was empty. I knew this would mean trouble was around the corner, but for now I just wanted something to numb the pain. As expected, my senses were soon attacked by this alcoholic juggernaut. I felt like I was on a waltzer that was being relentlessly spun by a teenage gypsy boy. My eyes could not keep pace and my legs ached. I slowly and deliberately sat on the floor, making sure I propped my back up against the wall to prevent me from slumping into a heap. If I curled up into a foetal position, I had mental images of everyone coming in from the lounge to take turns to kick me like a football. I felt the world’s all time most hated figures were Adolf Hitler, Charles Manson, Peter Sutclliffe, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot and me.

  My saviour then arrived. I could barely see her because my eyes were now moving like a washing machine’s fast spin cycle, but I heard Kelly’s comfortin
g voice.

  “Jemma, Jemma, are you OK?”

  “Everyone hates me, Kelly”.

  “No-one hates you, honey!”

  “They do! Billy McGregor hates me! James Billingham hates me! Amy hates me!”

  “Amy doesn’t hate you!”

  “She must do! I haven’t seen her all night!”

  “Jemma, Amy’s been with Eddie Garland all night. She’s not avoiding you, she’s attaching herself to him!”

  “Tell her not to! Go and find her, Kelly, and warn her to keep away from him! He’s a pretty boy! An arrogant pretty boy! I don’t like him. Go and tell her I don’t like him!”

  “Jemma, I can’t do that!”

  “Yes, you can!”

  “I can’t! For all you know, Amy may have hated Billy McGregor, but she wouldn’t say that to you because she’s your best friend!”

  “It’s because she’s my best friend that I need to tell her to keep away from Eddie Garland!”

  I persisted, I’m not sure for how long but eventually Kelly relented and said she would go and tell Amy for me. I was relieved. I had been an idiot falling for Billy McGregor, I didn’t want Amy to be equally stupid by falling for his sidekick.

  Kelly soon returned. My spin cycle was now on that speed at the end of the cycle where everything whizzes around at several hundred revs a minute.

  “Bloody hell Jemma! You look awful!”

  “Thanks Kel! What did she say?”

  “Who?”

  I couldn’t see her properly, but Kelly sounded confused.

  “Amy!”

  “Oh! She said thanks for the advice!”

  Kelly was a terrible liar.

  “You didn’t tell her, did you?”

  “No!”

  “Did you even see her?”

  “No! She’s busy!”